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Monday, January 30, 2017

Making Fine Arts a Priority #hscurriculumfair

Seeking Beauty, the Fine Arts and Everything that Brings Beauty into our Homeschools

I am a very crafty hands-on person. If I have a project I don't like to read the directions unless I really have to. This has worked to my advantage over the years and it has also caused me to redo things when I could have avoided it. I love to read, but I was never a very good student growing up. In high school I took all the classes I felt like I was suppose to take to go to college when all I really wanted was to get married and have kids.

I now know the importance to some of those subjects I hated and my kids still have to complete most of them, but I still want them to pursue things they love to do or try things they may enjoy. If I include these into our school day they will spend more time improving these skills.

Music is one of those things I always wanted to be good at and never was. I wanted to provide all five of my kids with piano lessons. Three of them enjoyed their playing every day and going to lessons but for two of them it became pure torture. Two of my girls still at home play piano and they have also picked up a few other instruments they are teaching themselves to play. They practice every day and will sometimes play for hours. My 15 year old has even taken on a few piano students to earn a little money.

My oldest daughter studied photography the last two years of school. We owned a decent camera and she took pictures all the time. She wanted to learn as much as she could about it, so she checked out every book at the library. She filled several notebooks with notes and put into practice the things she learned. I remember one time she wanted to get a good picture of a raindrop, so she made me hold the umbrella over her and the camera so she could get a good picture and not get the equipment wet. Now she is an adult and she takes nature photography and has just recently started selling them.

One of my daughters loves calligraphy and other fancy lettering. She has several sizes of calligraphy pens and she practices this every day. Some day she practices letters and other days she writes words. I'm not sure this is considered a fine art, but it is an art and add beauty to her school day.

The girls in the family also love to draw. Every evening I will read out loud to my family and they like to draw or color while I am reading. Some of them are better at this than others and my youngest and oldest daughters both have a natural talent for drawing.

There have been days that I feel like we do not have time for fine arts or that we should be spending the time on more weightier subjects but I feel these things are just as important as every other subject. It brings out the creative side in my kids and allows them to use not only their brain but their hands along with it. If we are really busy with school and outside activities and I don't allow myself time to be creative I get really frustrated. I think my kids would probably feel the same way if they didn't have a creative outlet in their school day too.

Now I invite you to visit my fellow homeschool bloggers who are talking about seeking beauty in their homeschools: